Ekphrasis page 128
One final concept from Greek antiquity that deserves some explanation here, even though it is not directly related to art theory, is ekphrasis (Exparis or descriptio in Latin) meaning an artful description. Ekphrasis was a standard part of the progymnasmata, the exercises given to students of rhetoric. Would-be orators had to describe a sculpture or painting as vividly and accurately as possible, so that the visual narrative they created would allow their audience to form a clear idea of the work. Theorists of rhetoric were quick to appreciate this ability to 'speak to the imagination'. Ekphrasis had a substantial impact on art in the Renaissance as it enabled the artists of the time to work in the opposite direction. Knowledge of antique art was limited in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, not only outside Italy but within the birthplace of Renaissance art itself. Barely any trace had survived of paintings from antiquity; all that remained of Zeuxis and Apelles' masterpieces were the beautiful descriptions of Horace and Pliny, and so their texts, along with those of other authors, began to be used in an attempt to reconstruct antique art. The translation from image to word was thus reversed, as words were turned back into images. The so-called Calumny of Apelles - a description of an allegorical composition by the most famous Greek sculptor - is an example as striking as it is well known. The painting was described by Lucian and was drawn and painted by numerous Renaissance masters, including Botticelli, Mantegna, Raphael and Bruegel.